Then why would the two so called scholars not be aware of what their Islamic sources tell us about the verse? This really means that they cannot be trusted and that their study should be regarded as cheap Islamic/Ahmadee Da'wa

But the point remains: this study of "Islamicity" finds that Muslim-majority countries are failing to live up the Islam's standards and Western ones are better achieving them, something full of implications.

The real issue here is the authors do not realize that the Hijazi Arabs had their own way of living and their laws that were very different from the legal system in the civilized Middle East at the time of the Arab invasion but it is very clear that the Islamic legal system owes its existence to the older legal codes the likes of the Roman Law and all Ulama had to do is to sift it and rearrange it and make it the Islamic law but such law was never enforced because you will always find the yes and the no and the may be in the Islamic tradition

Then on page 3 they tell us that

To what extent do self declared Islamic countries actually behave as Islamic countries ie following Islamic teaching from the Qur'an and the life and sayings of the Prophet

Here is the problem take the case of real estate and land mangement the Qur'an does not tell us very much so we do not have much help here

As for the sayings of Muhammad historians proved again and again that this is all anachronistic and these sayings were made up to reflect the reality in the 3rd century of Islam

Therefore the real foundation of their study the Qur'an and the sayings of Muhammad cannot help us or help them

Take the case of real estate and land management: The Arabs were nomads and compare this with the very sophisticated real estate and land laws in let us say Egypt and here is a great reference about real estate and land management in Egypt in the period between Alexander the Great 330BE and the Arab invasion in 643CE and the book is by James Keenan and the title is "Law and legal practice in Egypt from Alexander to the Arab conquest"

So Egyptians had solid and very sophisticated legal system in regard to real estate and land mangement on the eve of the Arab invasion and as an example we can read about a famous legal archive and I quote:

Far south in Apollinopolis Magna (today's Esna in Upper Egypt) during the epoch of the Persian invasion (616CE until 627CE) seemingly in 622CE (the year of Muhammad's Hijra) a house portion was mortaged for a loan. Therefore the mortgagor travelled north probably as far as Heracleopolis Magna. For a quarter of a century while Egypt passed from Persian hands back to Byzantine control and then succumbed to the Arab rule the house portion remained in possession of the mortgagee. A dispute then arose and in the midst of arbitral hearings in Apollinopolis Magna two of the parties thereto a husband and wife travelled north to Oxyrhynchus. There is 644/645 CE a deed of conveyance to that property far in the south was executed The spouses journeyed back up the river the hearings were concluded and a deed renouncing all claim was drawn up in their favor in 647CE Private strife had gone on while the fate of Egypt was being determined and apparently with no intervention by public authorities Persian Byzantine or Arab All persons were Copts strangers to the ruling class (see Alan Bowman)

This archive indeed proves that there was in Egypt a very sophisticated real estate law and all the Muslims that invaded Egypt had to do was to follow such law which really means that Egyptians were more islamic than the Arab invaders themselves but the reality is the Arabs indeed borrowed such legal system and the rest is history

This makes me conclude that the invading Arabs conquered lands the likes of Egypt with very advanced and sophisticated legal system that indeed functioned very well as in the case of the above real estate archive and it also means that the Arabs and their ulama all they had to do is to make such laws the laws of Allah

So the real question is why do Muslims not follow such laws when in the case of Egypt the Copts were following such law? This should have been what the study is all about

My guess is Islamic law is all about the yes and the no and the may be

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Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".